Palm Beach design panel skeptical of ‘Milk Can Modern’ house proposal
Seasonal resident and real estate investor Adrian Tauro of Toronto has built — and sold — two houses in Palm Beach.
And both of those homes won the endorsement of the town’s powerful Architectural Commission, which is tasked with approving the design of new architecture in town.
But Tauro and his architectural team encountered a healthy dose of skepticism when the board reviewed his latest development proposal — a house he commissioned for a lot he owns at 224 Via Marila. Its architecture would echo the look of a house he built and sold on Chilean Avenue in Midtown a few years ago.
Commissioners generally agreed the two-story house designed for Via Marila, while attractive, appeared too tall. They also thought its Cape Dutch-influenced architecture would be out of place in the North End neighborhood, with one commissioner even going so far to describe the style as “Milk Can Modern.”
Other commissioners weren’t quite as harsh in their comments.
“This is a nice design,” Commissioner Elizabeth Connaughton acknowledged during the board’s review of the project on Sept. 25. But she quickly added: “It’s far too big and far too out of place.”
Connaughton and her colleagues agreed the house needed an overhaul.
The two-story, four-bedroom residence was designed by Toronto architect Jason Gutajar, who worked on the project with Daniel Menard of LaBerge & Menard in West Palm Beach.
With 7,555 square feet — including a screened-in loggia and garage — the house would replace a one-story Bermuda-style house built in the 1960s with four bedrooms and 4,683 total square feet. Tauro bought the latter for a recorded $9.5 million in April 2023. The property measures nearly two-fifths of an acre and lies several blocks north of the Palm Beach Country Club and three lots west of North Ocean Boulevard.
As presented to the board by Menard, the front of the proposed house would feature a trio of two-story elements, each with a distinctively shaped gable at the roofline. The shortest of those elements would anchor the center of the façade, accenting the front door.
Chairman Jeff Smith and Vice Chairman Richard Sammons, however, said the gable elements were actually working against the success of the design and made the house look overscaled.
“It’s already a tall house, and the gables make it look taller,” said Sammons, who later called the house “enormous.”
Explaining the layout, Menard said the residence would have an imaginary arrow-like axis running from the front door straight through the living area and out to the central courtyard’s pool, ending at the rear of the property. There, a two-story guesthouse — with an apartment above a three-car garage — would back up to a service alley known as Laurian Lane.
In his opening remarks, Menard said the house’s symmetrical design and architecture would complement neighboring homes, some of which have formal elements. Two neighbors, in fact, submitted letters to the town supporting the design.
“The object is to have something that is very sleek, elegant and understated,” Menard told the board.
The exterior walls would be covered in smooth stucco and the roof would have gray tile. Nievera Williams Design created the landscaping plan.
Sammons immediately took issue with the architectural style. “It’s clearly a Northern house,” he said to Menard. “Why would you build it in a tropical climate?”
Sammons also questioned the steeply pitched roofs. “Are we expecting snow?” he asked with a wry chuckle. The dark roof would retain heat, Sammons said, and none of the windows had any “shading device” to deflect sunlight.
Dubbing the architecture as “Milk Can Modern,” Sammons said the house “makes no attempt to say it’s anywhere except, perhaps, Holland, Flanders (or) Belgium.”
Commissioner Betsy Shiverick also questioned the appropriateness of the architecture for Palm Beach.
“This looks like a house from a suburban (neighborhood) in — I don’t know — Chicago?” Shiverick said.
Alternate Commissioner Maisie Grace said the house would better complement the neighborhood if the overall style were more “informal,” “loose” and “beachy.”
Grace’s comments were echoed by Commissioner K.T. Catlin, a North End resident who frequently takes walks in the area. The proposed house, Catlin said, is “way too formal for the North End” but added that her statement didn’t “negate that it’s a beautifully designed home (with) beautifully designed landscaping.”
Even so, the house appeared to Catlin as “stern and uninviting.” The most appropriate homes on the North End, she said, “draw you in. They say, ‘Come have a cup of tea with me.’”
In the end, commissioners voted unanimously to have the architectural team restudy the design and return to the board Nov. 22 with major changes.
Tauro has owned property in Palm Beach since at least 2009, courthouse records show.
Since 2014, he has sold Palm Beach houses he built at 151 Chilean Ave. in Midtown and 95 Middle Road in the Estate Section according to property records.
During the discussion about the home proposed for Via Marila, the Architectural Commission was told the architecture of the house was similar to the look of the house Tauro built at 151 Chilean Ave. across town.
He also bought and sold at least three other residential properties in Palm Beach, including 402 Primavera Lane and 449 Australian Ave., both in Midtown and, most recently, a North End property at 221 Oleander Ave.
Based in Toronto, Tauro’s professional résumé includes tenure as a senior financial adviser with a private client group at ScotiaMcleod, part of Scotia Wealth Management, the investment arm of Scotiabank (the Bank of Nova Scotia).
Darrell Hofheinz is a USA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who writes about Palm Beach real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column. He welcomes tips about real estate news on the island. Email [email protected], call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
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